THE MARKET OF FORMS
The Market of Forms is part of the
Creative Lenses Forum, organised by
the University of the Arts London at
Chelsea College of Arts on 13 October
2016. Creative Lenses is a four-year
action research project funded by the
Creative Europe programme, exploring
business model innovation in the arts
and cultural sector. The stalls featured in this bustling popup market are run by London-based
creative practitioners, civil-society groups,
practice-based researchers and others.
The event explores critical and creative
forms of organisations to highlight their
potential. It seeks to build solidarities
among the stallholders and the milling
crowd and cultivate a diverse and
resilient ecology of practice.
The organisations showcased in the
Market of Forms are some of London’s
most innovative and vital – innovative
because they’re striking a dynamic
balance between sustainability and
ambition in their hybrid operations.
There is an urgent need for insurgent
exemplars of not-for-profit enterprise
at a time when the arts are under
attack. The organisations in the Market
are also vital in their use of art, design,
organisation and architecture to grapple
with some of the most pressing issues
of our time: climate change, gentrification,
yawning inequality, precarious working
conditions, the mass migration
and displacement of people, the
corporatization of art and education,
the shrinking public sphere—Brexit—
and more.
Curated by Marsha Bradfield, the
Market of Forms is inspired by the
non-commercial markets convened
by Critical Practice Research Cluster,
most recently #TransActing:
A Market of Values (London, 2015).
WWW.CREATIVELENSES.EU
Altgen
Altgen is a young people’s co-operative
agency based in London. We are
passionate about supporting our peers
to set up workers’ co-operatives as a
collaborative and empowering solution
to fix our broken economy. Our aim
is to re-imagine the future of work
by creating a more equal, democratic,
and sustainable economy today.
We are constantly experimenting with
the co-operative model and principles,
adapting this tried-and-tested form
of collective organisation for the 21st
century. We are always iterating and
improving the way we collaborate,
organise and communicate. In the
co-operative model, we discovered
a practical, tangible alternative that
is helping people to sustain themselves
in a fairer and more meaningful way
all over the world. And it’s been around
for over 100 years. As the next generation,
we want to use and adapt this model
as a tool to take control over the things
that matter in our lives: from housing
to food, from work to community spaces.
www.altgen.org.uk
Artists’ Union England
Artists’ Union England (AUE) represents
visual, applied and socially engaged
artists in order to gain fair pay and better
working conditions. The Union formed
in 2014 as a direct response to austerity
and the punitive economic measures
that artists increasingly are facing.
AUE holds a Certificate of Independence,
awarded in 2016, which evidences
that the Union is independent of
employers’ influence and that it operates
democratically for and on behalf of
its professional membership.
Artists play an important role in society
and AUE supports them. As workers
lose their jobs or continue roles in an
increasingly unequal and precarious
workplace, the focus on the role and
values of Trade Unions has risen again.
Artists’ Union England formed because
we are stronger together. Apply via
the website to become a member –
the members are the Union!
www.artistsunionengland.org.uk
Assembly SE8
Assembly SE8 is a community driven
project based at Old Tidemill School in
Deptford. Its core aims are to develop
and utilise the school’s facilities, creating
a community hub, which is a playground
for informal education and enriching
experiences, through regular activities
and events. Secondly, to transform the
mature but neglected wildlife garden into
an accessible and unique wild space
in the heart of Deptford. Assembly aims
to use these spaces in interesting and
alternative ways, and welcomes ideas,
artists and outside collaborations to
activate the space more. The space and
the current residents are working on
a number of projects engaging social
space use, intergenerational play, forest
schooling and fringe education.
www.assemblyse8.org
Ceramics Studio Co-op
Ceramics Studio Co-op is an artist-run
ceramics and sculpture workshop which
operates as a workers’ cooperative. The
studio is owned and run by the people
who work in it and have equal say in
what the business does. We were set
up in 2014 in response to the lack of
ceramics workshops accessible to
new makers, and with a goal to create
a space of ethical employment for
artists and designers.
www.ceramicsstudio.coop
Critical Practice Research Cluster
Critical Practice Research Cluster
(CP) is a group of artists, designers,
curators, researchers, academics
and others who have a longstanding
interest in public goods, spaces, services
and knowledge, and a track record
of producing participatory events.
These include PARADE (2010), which
explored publicness; and #TransActing:
A Market of Values (2015), which
engaged with values beyond the financial.
Both took place at Chelsea College
of Arts, which supports CP with funding,
space and other resources.
CP seeks to avoid the passive
reproduction of art and uncritical
cultural production. Our research,
projects, exhibitions, publications and
funding, our very constitution and
administration are legitimate subjects
of critical enquiry. All art is organised,
so we are trying to be sensitive to
issues of governance.
This emerges whenever there is a
deliberate organisation of interactions
between people. We are striving to be
an ‘open’ organisation, and to make
all decisions, processes and production
accessible and transparent. We post
all agendas, minutes, budget and
decision-making processes online
for public scrutiny.
www.criticalpracticechelsea.org
Open School East
Open School East (OSE) is an
independent, self-directed and outwardfacing study programme. It was founded
in response to spiraling tuition fees
and student debt, and the decrease
in both studio provision and civic
spaces in the capital. It was instituted
as an informal space for collaborative
learning, with the view to support the
artistic and professional development
of emerging artists and to foster cultural,
intellectual and social exchanges
between artists and the broader public.
Open School East is an innovative
model of an artists’ study programme
that engages with its surroundings
and with varied communities – artistic,
local and otherwise. Free to attend and
non-accredited, the study programme
runs across eleven months and
is principally self-directed, creating
platforms for the 14 associate artists
to develop their practice.
www.openschooleast.org
Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre
Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre (PSC) was
founded in 2013 and is a Community
Interest Company (CIC) dedicated
to promoting critical engagement
and innovation in the field of threedimensional creative practice. Over the
last three years we have piloted various
aspects of this vision through shortterm initiatives. This has earned PSC
a reputation for being both rigorous
and innovative, combining grassroots
activism with commercial activity
to support its not-for-profit ambitions.
Our multifarious activities web
together a rich and diverse network
of individuals and organisations that
share our commitment to making
cultural production in London more
sustainable, accessible, diverse and
engaged. PSC is committed to providing
essential opportunities, practical
support and facilities for practitioners
to enable the development of sculpture
in the UK and beyond. Central to our
ethos is that artists should be able
to further their practice without the
constraint caused by a lack of access
to equipment, facilities and expertise.
www.pangaeasculptorscentre.com
People’s Bureau
People’s Bureau (PB) is an installation
in the Elephant & Castle shopping centre.
Through monthly workshops of skill
exchanges between individuals from
local communities, the project aims
to make visible the diversity of cultures,
skills, networks and resourcefulness
present in an area that is currently
undergoing large-scale redevelopment.
The project takes inspiration from the
informal and fluid character of the
shopping centre; a place of social
as much as commercial exchange.
It may be understood as a microcosm
of the area itself. By focusing attention
on this underlying spirit of the place,
the project hopes to support its essential
preservation into the future.
PB is devised by artists Rebecca Davies
and Eva Sajovic. It has worked with
LAWRS, The Rockingham women, ATD
4th World, Paxton Time Bank, Hourbank
Peckham, PARC (Photography Archive
Research Centre), Siobhan Davies Dance,
Entelechy Arts, Peckham Print, Siriol
Davies, Prof. Andreas PhilippopoulosMihalopoulos, artists Shane Waltener,
Rosalie Schweiker, Tal Drori, Saskia
Pomeroy, Melanie King, Clare Charles,
Corinne Silva, Emma Lofstrom. PB has
operated off site as part of #Transacting:
A Market of Values and Tribe festival
at Tate Britain and it will be based
at Tate Modern January – April 2017
as Associate of Tate Exchange.
www.peoplesbureau.tumblr.com
Precarious Workers Brigade
Precarious Workers Brigade (PWB)
is a UK-based group of precarious
workers in culture and education.
We call out in solidarity with all those
struggling to make a living in this climate
of instability and enforced austerity.
PWB’s praxis springs from a common
commitment to developing research
and actions that are practical, relevant
and easily shared and applied. If putting
an end to precarity is the social justice
we seek, our political project involves
developing tactics, strategies, formats,
practices, dispositions, knowledge
and tools for making this happen. Some
resources that have come out of our
working process can be found in the
Tools section of this website. They are
meant to be shared, used and developed.
www.precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com
public works
public works is a not-for-profit critical
design practice, set up in 2004, that
works within the terrain of architecture,
art and design activism to bring about
positive social and environmental
change and support urban democracy.
Together with our extended
interdisciplinary network, we rework spatial, social and economic
opportunities towards citizen-driven
development with the intention to
improve civic life. We forge long-term
relationships with our clients and
collaborators to build trust and enable
co-authorship in city making.
Our projects, research and teaching
methods act as catalysts for this.
public works’ outputs include discursive
events, campaigns, urban strategies,
participatory art and architecture across
all scales. Our aesthetic and scale are
determined by the external collaborators
involved and project locality, which
makes every public works project unique.
www.publicworksgroup.net
Visiting Arts
Strengthening intercultural understanding
through the arts, Visiting Arts provides
opportunities for international exchange,
and delivers tools and advice to the
cultural sector to work more efficiently
and intelligently worldwide. Since 1977
Visiting Arts has worked with some
of the world’s most innovative emerging
contemporary artists in programmes
that engage and inspire young people,
communities and future professionals.
Working with a range of partners
including the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport, British Council,
Gulbenkian Foundation and Ministries
of Culture across the globe, Visiting
Arts has conducted research around
international cultural leadership including
trends in and barriers to international
working and needs analyses.
Visiting Arts’ latest programme,
Culture Works Connections funded
through ACPCultures+, aims to build
stronger, more sustainable creative
businesses with access to world
markets in Africa, the Caribbean and
Pacific over three years.
V isiting Arts’ digital initiative World
Cultures Connect (worldculturesconnect.
com) provides a free social networking
and information site for arts and cultural
professionals to support international
working. Visiting Arts is also a partner
in a new European pilot project Creative
Tracks (creativetracks.org), connecting
existing networks of young entrepreneurs
active in the cultural and creative sectors
worldwide to accelerate professional
development and enhance international
and cross sectoral exchanges.
www.visitingarts.org.uk
The Market of Forms is curated
by Marsha Bradfield
Marsha Bradfield is an artist, curator,
writer, educator and researcher. She has
worked almost exclusively in explicit
forms of collaboration for more than a
decade to explore co-authorship through
wide-ranging projects: non-commercial
markets, unconferences, walking and
cycle tours, workshops, screenings,
curricula, publications and exhibitions.
Marsha is currently consolidating the
practice-based research comprising her
postdoctoral fellowship (2013– 2015).
It considered economies and ecologies
in collaborative cultural production
and developed through practicing with
Critical Practice Research Cluster,
Precarious Workers Brigade and many
other collectives, cooperatives and
collaborations. Marsha is currently based
at Chelsea College of Arts (University
of the Arts London), where she works
as a researcher and lecturer across
levels. She also co-directs the Londonbased not-for-profit art organisation
Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre and will
soon be launching Arfield Projects
as an international platform for practicebased art research.
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